We’re really excited to have been selected by the Bristol Green Capital 2015 team to deliver ‘The Forgotten Toys Compendium’ as part of their Neighbourhood Arts Programme this year.
‘The Forgotten Toys Compendium’ is a new project from Knowle West Media Centre and Ludic Rooms that invites people to see “junk” in a fresh way by tapping into the shared experiences of play across different generations and cultures. It creates new invitations, pretexts, tools and spaces for social interaction, by starting with the very personal & then connecting up with neighbours and neighbourhoods. The project will work with lead local residents on a journey of social archaeology to rediscover and repurpose the playable gems hidden among the dusty piles of forgotten “junk” lurking in people’s attics, garages and sheds, shining a light on the latent social and cultural potential of these objects through the lens of collaborative play. These playable artefacts- from rusty bike wheels & old sledges to bent hoola-hoops, dusty console controllers and forgotten Furbies will be reborn through story-telling and active play.
The project contributes to the green agenda in a number of important ways, including:
- It re-uses and re-purposes existing objects, materials and landscapes (junk items in people’s sheds, attics and garages, and street furniture and infrastructure, such as walls, paving patterns, benches and bins), rather than using new materials or installing expensive and material intensive new structures;
- It encourages use of front gardens, streets and green spaces, encouraging positive social use and stewardship of the public realm.
- It opens up space at street-level for conversations about how we value “stuff” (culturally, environmentally, and across different generations) and how we can get more from less.